Chapter 38: Test of Loyalty Part 3
The monkey rebel leader and his loyal soldiers are currently running at full speed, unaware of all that happened to the three poor messengers their leader has sent back to the rebel camp, they continued to run, not minding their once bottomless stamina almost at their limit. Of course, the reason that all of them are fuming is not because of them jumping from tree to tree, nor it is because of the sometimes uneven hills they run into when they are sprinting at land, after all, they are once living inside a volcano and they walk daily in "Roads" as steep as the surface of the tallest of mountains, thus if it's just some ups and downs, they will not even break a sweat, let alone breath heavily like they are about to have an asthma attack.
Rather, the reason their tank is quickly depleting is because of how they designed their break schedules, they will eat breakfast while traveling, skip lunch, and eat dinner, after which they will immediately sleep and will wake up at midnight and travel once again, causing their rest time to be a mere four hours, plus the distance they are required to travel is not just mere kilometers.
And if all of that is not enough, they have to drop having breakfast and take quick one-hour rest at night and immediately wake up to reach the lair of the spider queen in the shortest possible time, the Queen in need stated that she splurged all of her foods to create a lot of battle spiders to hold off the cavalry for additional three days, thus the leader immediately decided that they will reach the lair in two days.
_Please be safe..._
He can only think so as he continued to make haste, trying his best to save his godmother.
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The Monkey leader stopped in front of a cave, alongside him, his soldiers that smiled at the sight of the cave whilst also panting because of exhaustion.
"We made it..."
He muttered, his soldiers just smiled, not having any energy to shout, these past days, they learned how are they dancing in the palm of the person whom they first deem to be weak, thus they stayed vigilant and gripped their weapons tightly, looking for the goblins who are said to be the monsters chosen by the hero prospect to serve her and do her biddings.
"Wait here I'll go insi-"
The leader is about to state his orders but suddenly, a feeling of being observed crept into his heart, this feeling is different from the one he felt earlier in their departure, the feeling back then is just pure observation and cannot even be called hostile, that's one of the reasons he ultimately ignored it.
However, the one he is feeling right now is different, it was as if someone is directly pointing his dagger at his throat at point black range, bloodlust and the intent to take his life are evident and the most troubling thing is that even though he can sense the bad intentions of the enemy, he cannot trace where does the intent comes from.
_Tsk, are we too late after all?_
Suddenly, as if his brain is going an overdrive, he found a flaw in the spider queen's story, in the tale told by the queen of arachnids, it is stated that the queen used all of his power to drive away the hero prospect and her goblin infantry causing her all of her battle spiders, however, why is there no corpse or even a drop of blood splattered all over the ground? Let's say that the non-combat spiders cleaned up the corpse for their birth giver to restore her strength, but there still will be no way that the spider queen will bother to command her children to suck the blood out of the grasses and soil.
_Could it be..._
A shroud of doubt lingered in the mind of the monkey rebel leader and that doubt turn into conviction as he hear the hooves of a marching cavalry and the sound of goats, he immediately shouted.
"It's a trap!"
He then turned around and suddenly, a spider as tall as him, as big as an elf truck, leaped in his direction, swiping its front legs as sharp as a blade forward. The Monkey Rebel has many questions in his mind, but he set aside all of them and used his spear to block the gigantic claw.
"GUUH!"
The leader grunted, shocked by the force of the attack of a being he deems as lower than him matching his strength, but ultimately surprised as to how he easily got flung into the air, landing just right about inside the lair of the spider queen.
_Shit!_
He exclaimed in his mind, but even before he could stand up, another spider inside the cave the same size as the previous one appeared, stabbing its claw right into his heart, really going for the kill.
_Damn it! My subordinates!_
He immediately rolled to the side in which his spear is in and stood right up, he pointed his spear at the spider, and he heard shouts of monkeys and the mehhs of goats causing his heart to sink, but the hopes of going out immediately crumbled to dust as the other spider earlier slowly entered the cave squirming its mandibles as a rumble was heard and the rock that acts like a door or more like a gate is closed by several small spiders.
"Thank you for coming, my child."
The whole cave suddenly resounded with the voice of the person who set all of this trap for him, this time the retched queen does not sound like a weak damsel in distress, but rather she sounds like a bully who is about to beat the living hell out of her prey.
The two big spiders in front of him seem to acknowledge that words as commands and immediately spat out poisons in their mouths, the monkey rebel leader was about to ask a question but was interrupted by the two arachnids, he jumped into the air, dodging the poisons that were spat on his direction, he then angled his body in a diving position as he pointed his spear into one of the spiders, attempting to kill it.
"KISHIEEEE!" The other spider noticed the attack and used his claws to cut the monkey in half, the spider who is the target of the rebel's attack also furiously opened his mandibles and bit down into the feet of the monkey.
"GUUUGH!"
The monkey immediately strengthened his limbs and resisted the force of the bite, he then, with haste blocked the claw of the other spider, the repelling force caused him to blast away out of the clutches of the other spider.
But of course, all actions have their corresponding circumstances. His feet suddenly got filled with severe pain as blood started to pour out, it was maimed and can only be used through his will.
"I am impressed, you have already exhausted almost everything left in your tank, yet you can still move with the same explosiveness your father that you rebelled against so much admired. My soldiers, end his life."
The soldiers or the spiders immediately accepted her orders, causing the monkey to be in a desperately defended stance, claws, sticky webs, poisons, bites, and everything was thrown into the monkey that once hailed himself as one of the strongest of the strongest tribe of the forest, he started to pant, but the thought of their very godmother betraying him did not allow him to stop resisting
"Why are you doing all of this!? Are you really that greedy to become a dog of that human just so that you can get a hold of my father's genes!?"
He asked the arachnid in front of him in between pants, and a feminine voice responded whilst the two spiders continued their attack.
"Huh? You of all people have the right to ask me that? Aren't you the one who rebelled just because you admired your third brother too much? You want to gain his recognition.. why again? Oh right, because he's confident and courageous... Well now, would you look at that, you did become courageous, in exchange for your life."
The queen sighed and then continued.
"And for the second question, I already have his genes, my womb gets filled up by lots of it night in, night out."
Tears started to flow out of the monkey's eyes, he reflected on all of his actions and how recklessly did he get to the point of being a traitor, if only he listened to his father's advice if only he was not blinded by something as shallow as idols, then he will not find himself in this perilous situation.
"You're as sentimental as your father, not only that but even your body constitution when he was a child is quite similar... Except that, you are not that impressive, I wonder what happened."
Dirty jokes such as this one were continuously hurled whilst he suffered, it was as if the love her godmother once gave to them was already gone.
_Did it even exist in the first place?_
That was the last question he can think of before his head was cut clean in half, his body slumping to the ground, lifeless.
After some time the Spider Queen came out of his hiding, her half spider body almost cannot move as several traces of blood can be seen all over her trail, she walked over the two spiders and leaned on one as she coughed a mouthful of blood.
"Good thing you two did the job quite well, it took a lot out of me to give birth to the two of you after all."
[Sophia's POV]
"My goodness, that was a long time."
[Huh?]
Oh, don't worry about it.
I have that little talk with my unique skill whilst I am watching the newly formed goat cavalry fight the exhausted monkeys, I am not worried about what is happening behind the cave because I can quite predict that those spiders have taken quite the tool on the spider queen, so I just focused on what's happening here. One should not underestimate how the exhausted monkeys can go against the cavalry, they made a concrete formation that forced the goat to attack head-on, however, it seems like my goblins have quite creative minds.
They retreated a little, organized a handful of their members to encircle the monkeys, and then the remaining ones jumped in the middle of the circular formation of the mentally and physically exhausted plus no leader monkeys, obviously the monkeys immediately collapsed, they ran into several directions but got their ass immediately handed to them by the goat cavalries that enclosed the area of the battlefield.
The expedition team of the rebels was wiped out.
That flawless execution was made without a single word from me... I am so proud of them...
As I was being smug towards myself on how successful the goat cavalry formation is, the spider in my shoulder suddenly quivered, its stomach bloated as big as a head, and suddenly spat out one, it is the head of a monkey and I assume that it belonged to the leader who got trapped in the cave.
The spider then leaped out of my shoulder and landed on top of the head that still has a liquid mixture of slime and blood, it still has its eyes open, seems like it is not yet fulfilled with his life before he died huh? Anyway, the spider spoke.
"WA! HA! HA! I DID IT MASTER!" The feminine voice can be heard alongside the smug tone of her voice, but I wonder how people retain their feminine persona despite laughing like a narcissist.
I replied.
"I see, but you do not have to deliver the proof to me in such a gross way you know?"
I said, finally accepting his oath of loyalty as I stood up, finally that annoying prick of a younger brother of that idiot monkey rebel leader is gone and I can finally make my big surprise a reality, I contacted Kabuto as I went out of my quarters.
"Tell Eleanor to execute her part in the war."
[3rd Person POV]
The other leader who stayed in the camp is fuming with anger for he cannot handle the situation anymore, first for some reason goblins that are inferior to the monkeys initiated an attack, this already caused the ire of all monkeys, and for a while, they actively hunted those foul green beasts, but for some reason every time the monkeys went out to hunt them, the side of the monkeys are always the one to take casualties. This went on for days until the monkeys stopped hunting the goblins and started to decrease their hunting zones to avoid getting killed, but the goblins did not stop.
_I am being provoked!_
He exclaimed in his mind as he remembered the reason his father is not making any move against the forest. He is already on the verge of just attacking with all his might towards the camp the hero prospect has built for her and her subordinates, but his brother is still not by his side, take note that the information about the camp is just because of two goblins recklessly talking about their camp in which a monkey they purposely let escape heard, and except for its location, the monkeys does not have any idea about the specifics of the camp.
Their scouts are not that seasoned and their race is not suitable for infiltration, thus they can't acquire anything about the camp except for its location.
Thus he can only grit his teeth and continue to retreat like a headless chicken.
Suddenly, as he was pondering about these things, a monkey came dashing into his quarters panting like mad, after some time of stabilizing his breathing, the monkey spoke.
"Leader the spider queen is in danger!"
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Side Story:
If you ever feel useless, just remember that this messenger dashed day and night back to their camp to convey that the spider queen is dying and arrived the day his other leader died at the hands of the spider queen.